Conservatives troll leftists wth '#CancelYale'

As colleges move to take down statues and change building names, conservatives challenged “cancel culture” by pointing out that Yale University’s founder was literally a slave trader. 

“Yale University was named for Elihu Yale. Not just a man who had slaves. An actual slave trader. I call on @Yale to change it’s [sic] name immediately and strip the name of Yale from every building, piece of paper, and merchandise,” Jesse Kelly, a Marine Corps combat veteran and former congressional candidate in Arizona, said Saturday. “Otherwise, they hate black people.” 

Conservative author Ann Coulter followed up the satirical tweet, saying that “202 years of celebrating a racist, genocidal slave trader is enough. YALE. MUST. CHANGE. ITS. NAME.” 

[RELATED: MAP: Colleges coast to coast give confederate monuments, historical symbols the boot]

#CancelYale trended nationwide Saturday as Kelly prolonged the topic and users on both sides of the political spectrum weighed in. 

A Wall Street Journal opinion editorial called on Yale in 2016 to consider changing its name because of its founder’s history, describing Elihu Yale as “egregious” and condemning the merchant, whose benefactions served to support the university, for his involvement in the slave trade as an official of the East India Company. 

Based on this, Kelly challenged the university for displaying a portrait of Elihu Yale: “Yale hates black people and thinks they should be traded as commodities.” 

”If we’re tearing down the Confederacy, we’re gonna have to tear down a place named after a slave trader,” Kelly said, adding that Yale “must change its name immediately and issue a public apology. Or disband the university altogether.”

Universities have made small-scale changes to their campuses in recent weeks, including removing monuments associated with Confederate figures, but none have gone so far as to change their names. 

[VIDEO: Young Americans support removing statues, renaming buildings....even for Founding Fathers and recent Dem politicians]

Kelly targeted other Ivy League schools, spotlighting those whose founders’ pasts were less than innocent. 

“Anyone suggesting the removal of a Confederate general’s name without also suggesting tearing down Ivy League schools is unserious about solving racism,” he wrote, mentioning Brown, Georgetown, Rice, and Stanford as other examples of Ivy Leagues that should consider changing their names. 

Yaledisabled comments on its tweets Saturday and has not responded to Campus Reform’s request for comment. 

“REMINDER: I wanted everyone and everything left alone. That’s all I wanted. But this has gone far enough. It’s on now,” Kelly tweeted Sunday evening.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @mariatcopeland